Ambassador to Mexico

Wilson was appointed Ambassador to Mexico by President Taft on December 21, 1909 and presented his credentials to President Diaz on March 5, 1910.[4] Wilson was ordered by William Howard Taft to remain neutral and to not make the USA responsible for the outcome of the occurring rebellions in Mexico at the time.[5] He became personally acquainted with some of the most important figures of the Revolution, such as Álvaro Obregón, Venustiano Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Francisco I. Madero. As Taft's Ambassador to Mexico, fearing the leftist tendencies of the new Madero government upon the ouster of Diaz (not to mention the fact that he considered Madero a 'lunatic'),[4] he assumed the role of catalyst for the plot of General Victoriano Huerta, Felix Díaz, and General Bernardo Reyes against President Madero,[6] and was purported to have assisted in arranging the murder of Madero and his vice-president, José María Pino Suárez, during La decena trágica (The Ten Tragic Days) in February 1913, a point that was later disputed by Wilson.[3][7] After his inauguration in March of that year, President Woodrow Wilson was informed of events in Mexico by a special agent, William Bayard Hale, and was appalled by Henry Lane Wilson's assistance to the Huerta coup d'état against Madero.[8] Hale reported that "Madero would never have been assassinated had the American Ambassador made it thoroughly understood that the plot must stop short of murder", and accused Henry Lane Wilson of "treason, perfidy and assassination in an assault on constitutional government".[9] The President supplanted Henry Lane Wilson by sending to Mexico as his personal envoy John Lind, the former governor of Minnesota. On 17 July 1913,[4] the President dismissed Ambassador Wilson.[10]